This gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said:
"Gentlemen, this is an old friend of former days"; and Normandy looked at me through a eyeglass, and said, "Magsman, glad to see ye!" which I'll take my oath, he wasn't.
Mr. Chops, to get him convenient to the table, had his chair on a throne, much of the form of George Fourth's in the canvas, but he hardly appeared to me to be King there in any p'int of view, for his two gentlemen ordered about like emperors. They was all dressed like May-day—gorgeous!—and as to wine, they swam in all sorts.
I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done it), and then tried two of 'em as half-and-half, then t'other two. Altogether, I passed a pleasant evenin', but with a tendency to feel muddled, until I considered it good manners to get up and say:
"Mr. Chops, the best of friends must part. I thank you for the wariety of foreign drains you have stood so 'ansome. I looks towards you in red wine, and I takes my leave."
Mr. Chops replied:
"If you'll just hitch me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me down-stairs, I'll see you out."
I said I couldn't think of such a thing, but he would have it, so I lifted him off his throne. He smelt strong of Madeary, and I couldn't help thinking, as I carried him down, that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a rayther ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion.
When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kept me close to him by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers:
"I ain't 'appy, Magsman."